Mesmerized
by Serpent In Red
Summary: To be honest, he probably wasn't the handsomest man she'd ever seen, but somehow she was just so attracted to him—she would go as far as to say, she was mesmerized by him.
1. Mesmerized

**Prompt**: #06. First Meeting  
**Betas**: None. You have been warned.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own these characters, nor am I making any money from them. I merely borrow them from time to time.  
**Rating**: G  
**Notes**: Cross-posted on my LJ.  
**Summary**: To be honest, he probably wasn't the handsomest man she'd ever seen, but somehow she was just so attracted to him—she would go as far as to say, she was mesmerized by him.

~-0-~

**Mesmerized**

She peeked over the bush. A satisfied smile appeared on her face; if life were an anime, she'd guessed that imaginary hearts would've taken over her pupils.

Sitting behind the window was a man, perhaps in his twenties or perhaps early thirties, she couldn't really tell. He sat casually with his back against the chair as he read something from his laptop that was perched on top of the table in front of him. Long, white-blonde hair brushed his shoulders whenever he turned his head, and she had the urge to run her hands through those locks, just to see what they feel like. His suit jacket and tie were both carefully folded and placed on the chair next to him. The top three buttons of his pristine white shirt were opened, which granted her sneak peeks at his muscular chest whenever he moved, and judging from the long legs under the table, he was much taller than her.

Dear Selene, he was beyond perfect—and that wasn't something that Aino Minako said about every man she'd crossed paths with.

To be honest, he probably wasn't the handsomest man she'd ever seen, but somehow she was just so attracted to him—she would go as far as to say, she was mesmerized by him. There was just something about his calm, slightly stern face that wouldn't leave her alone. The thought of causing uncontrollable emotions to appear over those composed features became the main focus of her daydreams nowadays.

True, she had become infatuated many times, but it was different this time. She could tell.

"Minako-chan!"

She whipped her head around, looking for the cause and found her friends closing in on her. As if burned, she stood up straight, her cheeks hot.

"What are you doing?" asked Usagi.

"Erm … nothing. I thought I lost something. My henshin pen! Yes, here it is, see? Silly me," Minako explained hurriedly. "Now, should we go in for a drink?"

"I thought we were going to go shopping today?" Makoto questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Shopping, yes, but it can be after we have a drink, no?" Minako asked.

"Are you hiding something?"

The suspicion on Rei's face almost made Minako balk inwardly. Thankfully, Minako wasn't an aspiring actress for nothing.

With an exaggerated laugh and flamboyant wave of her hand, she said, "Of course not! Let's go inside."

Without waiting for her friends' confirmation and completely ignoring how they weren't the least bit convinced, she grabbed Ami and Usagi and hurried into the coffee shop.

After being seated at one of the booths (she insisted to the waitress that she wanted a seat near the window), she gave each and every one of her friends a brilliant smile.

"Let's see what I'll have today," she announced as she picked up the menu and pretended to read over the contents.

She glanced to the right and found, much to her pleasure, how much closer she was to the handsome man. She wondered how he would look like with a smile on his face.

Another mission for daydream session: Be the one to make him smile.

Without warning, the menu was snatched from her hands. She glanced up in shock and found Rei's eyes now trained on the man.

"Aha," Rei said softly. "I knew something was going on."

"Well, I can't say I blame her. He is very handsome," Makoto spoke up with a nod of her head.

"That's no excuse for springing this on us," Rei said. With a smile, she added, "She could've just told us from the beginning that she'd found another victim."

"Hey!" Minako protested, now thankful that the booth was far away enough so that the gorgeous man couldn't hear their conversation.

"Did you talk to him before?" Usagi asked.

The bubbly tone of her voice made Minako scared.

"N-no," she stuttered, taken aback. "Usagi-chan—"

However, it was much too late. Her Princess was already halfway there.

~-0-~

Bessho Kiyoshi was just getting ready to put his work away when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. When he glanced upwards, a look of astonishment appeared on his face.

"Hello!" Although her greeting was filled with enthusiasm, no words followed. Instead, she scratched the back of her head in a rather sheepish way. "Er—"

"Usagi-chan!"

A hand extended and grabbed Usagi, pulling her backwards. The owner of the hand was another young lady, and when Kiyoshi registered her face, his eyes widened. If Zachariah saw him, Kiyoshi was sure he'd have a field day.

"Minako-chan—" Usagi protested.

"What do you think you're doing?" Minako hissed.

"I _**was**_ going to ask for his name," Usagi said, "until you stopped me."

"That wouldn't seem weird or stalkerish at all," Minako whispered, though Kiyoshi's well-trained ears hardly missed it at all.

"Usako?"

The two girls turned around, nearly identical looks of surprise on their faces.

"Oh, Kiyoshi, you're already here," Mamoru said with some difficulty as Usagi bear-hugged him.

"Why are you here, Mamo-chan?" Usagi asked, finally releasing him.

"I was meeting with my friend," Mamoru replied, gesturing towards Kiyoshi.

"Oh, so his name is Kiyoshi," Usagi murmured to herself, sneaking a glance at Minako who glared back at her.

"Usako …" Mamoru said a bit warily.

"I'll tell you later," Usagi whispered.

Mamoru laughed and touched Usagi's face gently, the fondness he had for his girlfriend apparent.

"So do you want to join me and Kiyoshi?" he asked.

"Sur—"

"We have to get going now!" Minako said loudly, successfully stopping Usagi's words. "We have some girl things to talk about and I'm sure you two have some boy things to talk about. Nice seeing you, Mamoru-san."

Minako's eyes met with Kiyoshi's momentarily, and she quickly averted them again out of shyness. Ignoring Usagi's objections, Minako pulled her towards a table not too far from where Kiyoshi was sitting, all the while squabbling over something that got swallowed by distance and other sounds inside the coffee shop.

Mamoru sat down, but before they could say anything, the waitress came over. While Mamoru ordered his usual coffee, Kiyoshi spent the time clearing the table of his work papers.

"Sorry about that," Mamoru apologized, once the waitress left.

Kiyoshi shook his head. "There's nothing to apologize about." He allowed his eyes to travel over to the table where the girls were sitting at. "They don't remember anything anyway."

The melancholy in his voice was too much for his liking, and he almost wished that his Prince wouldn't notice it.

But of course Mamoru didn't miss it.

"I could talk to them about it," Mamoru offered.

"No," Kiyoshi—formerly known as Kunzite—said, snapping his eyes back towards Mamoru. "That would be unwise, your Highness."

"Mamoru," his Prince corrected.

"Mamoru-san," Kiyoshi repeated.

"They'll have to know one day," Mamoru pointed out with a frown on his forehead. "You can't expect—Once Crystal Tokyo is here, they'll find out. You can't expect to stay, I quote, 'out of their way' forever. The way I see it, you're not even in their way. In fact, if there's a new enemy, you'll be an asset to the team."

The waitress came back with Mamoru's coffee, and after placing it on the table, she left.

"Still naïve," Kiyoshi murmured.

"I resent that."

"We won't be an asset as long as they feel that we're their enemy," Kiyoshi said.

"Which is why I'll explain everything to them. It's not your fault that you were brainwashed, and you happen to remember that I was brainwashed this lifetime, too, don't you? It's not the biggest crime in the universe."

"You're different," Kiyoshi said.

"How am I different?" Mamoru was now looking at him with that stubborn look Kiyoshi knew all too well.

"You never killed _**your**_ Princess, the person you loved," Kiyoshi said.

"I nearly did," Mamoru countered.

"That doesn't count."

"How doesn't that count?" Mamoru demanded.

It was only when Kiyoshi glanced warningly over at the other table that Mamoru visibly reined his temper back in.

"How doesn't that count?" Mamoru asked, this time in a much lower voice. "If she hadn't fought back, if she wasn't that strong, I would've killed her without a second thought. How is that different from what you've done?"

"You still do not have her blood on your hands," Kiyoshi said through gritted teeth.

"Minako-chan doesn't remember that," Mamoru said, almost triumphantly.

"It doesn't matter. She'll already hate me for what I've done this lifetime. When she remembers the past, she'll hate me even more."

Kiyoshi looked towards the Senshi table again. This time, his eyes met with Minako's. The beautiful blush that blossomed on her cheeks was so delicate, so endearing, that it took all of Kiyoshi's strength not to go over there and embrace her, so that no one else could see what should only belong to him.

But she no longer belonged to him. Brainwashed or not, he forfeited that _**privilege**_ because of his actions.

"You know, you might want to stay away from her," Mamoru mused, obviously having seen the small interaction between the two, "but that doesn't mean you can make her do the same."

Kiyoshi didn't answer. He didn't know how to answer because he knew Mamoru was right. His Princess, his beautiful soldier from Venus was persistent, and if she was anything like the woman he had once known, she wouldn't stop until she'd made a nice and cozy home inside of his heart.

And the worst thing was, hope and anticipation took that as a cue to start breaking down his resolve to stay away from her

~-0-~


	2. Conspiracy

**Prompt**: #88. Warning  
**Betas**: None. You have been warned.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own these characters, nor am I making any money from them. I merely borrow them from time to time.  
**Rating**: G  
**Notes**: Cross-posted on my LJ.  
**Summary**: There are times when mutiny is understandable, even justifiable. Three individuals believe that this can be considered one of those moments.

~-0-~

**Conspiracy**

"You've met with Venus!?"

Zachariah's shriek nearly pierced Kiyoshi's eardrums when he walked into the apartment.

"Who told you?" he asked, rubbing his ear and trying to alleviate the pain.

"So you did meet with her," Zachariah concluded as his nostrils flared in anger. "What happened to all the 'We are forbidden from coming in direct contact with the Senshi', hm? You yourself go against THE RULE YOU IMPLEMENTED—"

"Zack—

"—WHILE FORBIDDING US TO DO THE SAME—"

"Will you—"

"THIS IS HYPOCRISY AND I WILL NOT STAND IT—"

"Zack—"

"You know, Zack has a point," Jin spoke up.

"—EVEN IF WE'RE IN A MONARCHY WHO MADE YOU KING—"

"Stay out of this, Jin," Kiyoshi warned.

"—I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS SHIT—"

"Zachariah Gima, if you don't shut up right now …" Kiyoshi demanded, trailing off and leaving the rest of his threat up to Zachariah's imagination.

Predictably, Zachariah stopped in his rant, though it didn't stop him from glaring at his leader as he plopped down on one of the sofas in the living room. His fists were still clenched, and his chest heaved from the deep breaths he was taking.

"But you can't really blame Zack," Nobuki called out from the kitchen of their shared apartment.

"Shut it, Nobuki," Kiyoshi said, exasperated.

"He would have, you know, expected you to invite all of us to come along if you were planning to meet with Princess Venus," Jin contributed.

"Stop it, Jin," Kiyoshi said through gritted teeth. "I didn't plan on meeting with Minako."

"Minako! Minako! He even knows her name! AND YOU'RE SAYING YOU DIDN'T DO THIS ON PURPOSE!?" Zachariah shouted as he sprang up from his seat.

"How did you know Venus's name?" Jin asked.

"How did the three of you find out?" Kiyoshi countered.

Nobuki walked out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee, raising his hand. "I saw you in the café—"

"Caught red-handed!" Zachariah said, shooting daggers at Kiyoshi with his eyes and his voice much higher than usual.

"I didn't know the Senshi were going to be there," Kiyoshi confessed.

"So it was the hands of fate, wasn't it? Perhaps we should all stroll along the streets of Tokyo to see if we bump into one of the Senshi 'accidentally'," Zachariah mocked.

"Enough, Zack," Kiyoshi snapped.

Zachariah sat down in his seat again, pouting and attempting to murder Kiyoshi with his stare.

"What were you doing at the café?" Kiyoshi directed his question to Nobuki.

Nobuki stopped in his tracks, his expression similar to that of a deer caught in the headlights. "Er … You know, I was out for a stroll …"

Both Kiyoshi and Zachariah narrowed their eyes at him.

"It WAS an accident," Nobuki defended, holding the mug close to his chest, as if it were going to stop them from attacking him.

"I told you, time and time again—"

"It wasn't my fault!" Nobuki shouted, pointing a finger at Jin. "He was the one who called me and told me he saw the Senshi heading in that direction."

"Traitor," Jin muttered.

The look on Kiyoshi's eyes made Jin sink further into his seat.

"I was out for a walk—"

"So I'M the only one who was abiding by the stupid rule? Oh, that's a first," Zachariah jeered.

"I'm pretty sure that the only reason you haven't done it yet is because we were all watching you," Kiyoshi said.

"He also has to finish that computer program for his job," Jin added.

"WHILE THE THREE OF YOU FOLLOWED THE SENSHI LIKE FRIGGIN' STALKERS BEHIND MY BACK!" Zachariah exploded.

"I wasn't stalking Jupiter," Nobuki defended himself.

"Neither was I stalking Mars," Jin said.

"Do I hear confessions of guilty consciences there? It sure seems like it to me," Zachariah sneered.

"Zack, stop it already. You're acting like a petulant child—"

"I wouldn't be acting like a child if you haven't gone behind my back and met with Venus!" Zachariah screeched.

"I wasn't meeting with Venus," Kiyoshi reiterated. "I was meeting with Mamoru-san—"

"At where the Senshi was conveniently congregating!" Zachariah fumed.

"If I had known that the Senshi would've been there, I wouldn't have gone there," Kiyoshi said. "Would you stop assuming that I went there of my own accord?"

"So how did you know Venus's name was Minako? I sure as hell don't remember Endymion-sama mentioning it," Jin said, attempting to steer the conversation away from his own wrongdoings.

The look Kiyoshi gave him assured him that things weren't forgotten. Nonetheless, Kiyoshi still launched into an explanation—Jin's punishment could wait.

"She came up to me in the café—I didn't go up to her, Zack, so if you start screaming again, it'll be a hundred laps around the neighborhood for you," Kiyoshi said. "Serenity-hime mentioned her name in passing."

"You've met Serenity-hime, too?" The displeasure and hostility on Zachariah's face grew.

"Yes, she was there with the other Senshi," Kiyoshi admitted. "I didn't get to meet Mercury, if that's what you're going to ask next, but I'm pretty sure she was part of the group Minako was sitting with."

Zachariah made an indistinguishable noise that turned into an infuriated squawk when he heard Nobuki's next words.

"Yeah, Mercury was in the group, too. She still has that short hair," Nobuki said, indicating her length of hair with his hand.

He was about to continue but stopped when he noticed the ice-cold stare Kiyoshi was giving him.

"For the very last time, I'm warning all three of you," Kiyoshi said quietly, "if I hear so much as a rumor about the three of you intentionally bumping into the Senshi again, you will not like the consequences. I mean it. Do not, for one second, believe that just because we are no longer in the Golden Kingdom, I have no means of punishing you."

All three men fell silent, though Zachariah continued sending hateful glares towards Kiyoshi. After so many years of following Kunzite, they were pretty accurate when it came to detecting when they've reached his limit. Right now, they knew they were right at the edge of tipping over the cliff and falling.

And things were never fun when that happened.

They remained quiet until Kiyoshi went into the bathroom and they heard the water running.

"Is it just me or there was a glaring loophole in his demand?" Nobuki asked in a whisper.

"No, it's not just you," Jin agreed with a nod. He raised both of his hands up. "I'm not about to remind him about it either."

"But what kind of a loophole is that? It's a stupid loophole if I ever saw one," Zachariah complained.

"I'd take the loophole any day," Nobuki said.

"But it basically means that we'll have to wait for the girls to make their moves and bump into us first. What if we never accidentally bump into them and they never know us? What if—" Zachariah sucked in a deep breath. "What if they fall in love with someone else, get married, and have children before we meet them?"

"Goddamnit, Zack, if you jinx me—"

Nobuki's words were stopped by Jin, who waved at him to lower it down while nodding towards the bathroom door.

"If you jinx me, Zack," Nobuki threatened in a considerably lower voice, "I swear that I'm going to rip off your head and throw it to the dogs."

"I'm not jinxing you," Zachariah replied, the panic on his face apparent, "but those girls! They're young and, if they look anything like they were in their previous lives, they're friggin' beautiful as hell. Those hormone-driven boys will be all over them, and I'm not letting them lay their filthy paws on my Mercury."

"I'll break all of their arms and legs if they touch my Jupiter," Nobuki hissed, cracking his knuckles at the thought.

"I think both of you are forgetting one essential thing," Jin said. "They're not ours this lifetime and our history of harming them and the ones they love might not actually work in our favor."

Zachariah threw up his hands in the air. "Does that mean that we just sit back and wait until they run off with someone else? Yes, we did a lot of crappy things, but—"

Resentment knitted his eyebrows together, and he nibbled on his lower lip.

"We don't deserve them," Jin mused, "but we don't want to give up so easily either."

"Didn't Endymion already told us to leave our past behind us?" Nobuki asked, frustrated. "So we were brainwashed. Does that mean we don't get a chance to redeem ourselves? To do good things to make up for what we've done? And just in case you don't remember, we didn't exactly have full control of what we were doing at the time."

"We're allowed the second chance, but Kiyoshi's idea of full repentance …"

"He thinks that we don't deserve to be with the Senshi," Zachariah finished for Jin, a touch of bitterness entering his voice. "But don't you think that it's supposed to be the Senshi who lay the final verdict? Why should we be sent directly to hell when we haven't even gotten the chance to prove to everyone that we've changed, that we're not those monsters who'd attacked them back then?"

"You won't catch me arguing with you," Nobuki said with a snort.

"So are you in or out?" Zachariah asked, turning towards Jin.

Jin blinked. "I don't even know there was an agreement somewhere along the line."

"Are you siding with us or with that lump of coal?" Zachariah asked, jabbing his thumb in the general direction of the bathroom.

"Does it look like I plan on not seeing the Senshi?" Jin questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Zachariah narrowed his eyes at him. "Then what was all of _**that**_ for?"

"I was playing the devil's advocate," Jin answered with a grin. "So … how do we plan on 'bumping' into the Senshi?"

~-0-~

**A/N**: The replies to anonymous reviews can be found on the LJ that I've created specifically for this purpose. The link can be found on my profile.


	3. The Element of Surprise

**Prompt**: #44. Smell  
**Betas**: None. You have been warned.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own these characters, nor am I making any money from them. I merely borrow them from time to time.  
**Rating**: G  
**Notes**: Cross-posted on my LJ.  
**Summary**: He was a general after all. So he knew precisely when to attack and when to retreat.

~-0-~

**The Element of Surprise**

He was locking the front door when he smelled it. A wonderful, zesty orange-lemon smell that reminded one of warm, lazy summer afternoons filled with chirping of birds and beautiful blue skies.

He closed his eyes and inhaled, his mind sweeping him thousands of years into the past, when the beautiful twin planet of the Earth wasn't shrouded by clouds of sulfuric acid. He forced himself to stop when he realized where his thoughts were going and shoved back all memories of spun-gold hair and baby blue eyes.

Shaking his head, he turned around and was startled to find that the silhouette in his brain had taken on a corporeal form and was standing right in front of him.

It took a moment for him to realize that it wasn't a figment of his imagination, and when he did, his hand tightened into a fist inside the pocket of his jacket.

"Hello," Venus—or more appropriately, Aino Minako—greeted.

"Hello," he replied, and he inwardly winced when he realized how hoarse his voice sounded.

"I was just … passing by the neighborhood, and I thought you looked familiar, so I thought I should check," she explained, though he hadn't asked for an explanation.

Not trusting himself to speak, he simply nodded.

"Kiyoshi, isn't it?" she asked. Not bothering to wait for an answer (because of course she would've gotten that information somewhere else already), she continued, "Are you busy?"

_Say yes_, he mentally commanded himself.

"No."

A brilliant smile that would've lighten up the whole world appeared on her face, and if only for a second, he felt satisfied with himself, almost proud.

Until the cold reality crashed down and he remembered his vow to stay away from the Senshi. It was at that moment that he realized, he hadn't prepared himself enough. He hadn't prepared to be confronted by the Senshi. Even though he'd known that she would take the initiative and start searching him out. The moment he met her in the café, he should've started building up a sturdy wall around his heart and recreating a mask of coldness to cover his emotions. But he had failed.

He shouldn't have been this careless.

He averted his eyes and took on a cooler tone of voice. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Minako seemed momentarily taken aback by his tone of voice, but she quickly recovered.

"Where are you going?" she asked instead of answering.

"Er …" Kiyoshi's usually intelligent mind drew a blank, so the truth came out instead. "We ran out of coffee …"

"Great! Let's go to the supermarket together," she said, looping her arm around his.

He couldn't help but stare at her, his Venus in all her radiant beauty and citrusy smell that was so familiar yet so distant. He couldn't muster the strength to push her away, like he knew he should. A beautiful blush painted her cheeks pink, but he saw the determination in her eyes.

She wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Dear Gaea, why did she have to make things so difficult for him? He was trying this hardest to stay away, to avoid bringing her harm again.

"Well, what are you waiting for? The supermarket awaits us," she said cheerfully.

"I …"

With her sky-blue eyes gazing into his, he really wished there was someone there to tell him how to refuse her. Anyone but Zoisite, that was. He didn't appreciate having his hearing impaired.

"Let's go," she said, smiling.

And at that moment, he knew. He was a general after all, and he knew when to stop, when continued fighting wouldn't make a difference. He had lost the battle today, due to her clever use of surprising him.

But there was still the war.

"Let's go," he repeated, hoping desperately that none of the other Shitennou would see him.

He didn't exactly appreciate having another quarrel with them because of the Senshi. Additionally, it might plant ideas in their heads, ideas like attempting to bump into the Senshi on their own.

If they weren't meeting the Senshi behind his back already.

That thought, however, was thrown to the back of his mind as he walked down the street with the Venusian soldier at his arm. She chattered on about seemingly everyday things, and he couldn't help smiling when she occasionally used the wrong adage. It brought back the better memories of his previous life and pushed back the painful ones.

Just this once, he promised himself. The next time he saw her, he would be ready and he wouldn't give in again.

He couldn't give in again.

~-0-~


End file.
